Alan Keyes. [Source: WorldNetDaily (.com)]Alan Keyes (R-IL), the unsuccessful presidential candidate who ran under the American Independent Party banner, files a petition, Keyes v. Bowen, with the Superior Court of California in Sacramento. The action is filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Keyes, along with well-known “birther” lawyer Orly Taitz. Two California electors, Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, are also named with Keyes in the action. Keyes’s “Petition for Writ of Mandate” claims that President-elect Barack Obama (D-IL)‘s US citizenship is unproven (see (see June 13, 2008, June 27, 2008, July 2008, August 21, 2008, and October 30, 2008) and therefore he must be stopped from taking office until it is proven one way or the other. “Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void,” the petition states, “Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal.” The petition requests that Secretary of State Debra Bowen be prevented “from both certifying to the governor the names of the California Electors, and from transmitting to each presidential Elector a Certificate of Election, until such documentary proof is produced and verified showing that Senator Obama is a ‘natural born’ citizen of the United States and does not hold citizenship of Indonesia, Kenya, or Great Britain.” It continues with a request for a writ barring California’s electors from signing the Certificate of Vote until documentary proof is produced. The defendants include Bowen, Obama, Vice President-elect Joseph Biden (D-DE), and the 55 California electors. The petition uses a fraudulently edited audiotape (see October 16, 2008 and After) as primary evidence that Obama was born in Kenya and is therefore ineligible to be president. Referring to the tape’s transcript, and a previously dismissed lawsuit by Philip Berg (see August 21-24, 2008) currently using the same audiotape to justify an appellate reversal, Keyes writes, “Mr. Berg provided documents [to the Supreme Court] to the effect that Senator Obama was born in what is now Kenya… and that his paternal grandmother was present at his birth.” The petition states as a “fact” that Obama’s paternal grandmother stated that “she was present during [his] birth… [she] affirmed that she ‘was in the delivery room in Kenya when he was born Aug. 4, 1961.’” The suit asks that the court issue an immediate injunction prohibiting California’s 55 electors from voting for Obama in the upcoming Electoral College vote on December 15, 2008, which would prevent Obama from being officially declared president. Keyes’s writ asks that documentary proof be received and verified by the California secretary of state that the allegations are false and that Obama is affirmatively proven to be a “natural born citizen” by a series of tests not required of any previous president-elect. Investigative blogger Greg Doudna will speculate that Keyes’s extraordinary actions have been sparked in part because he has now been twice defeated by Obama in elections; Obama defeated him in an Illinois election for US Senate in 2004. [Keyes et al v. Bowie et al, 11/13/2008 ; WorldNetDaily, 11/14/2008; Sacramento Union, 11/15/2008; Greg Doudna, 12/9/2008 ] After filing the lawsuit, Keyes tells a reporter: “I and others are concerned that this issue be properly investigated and decided before Senator Obama takes office. Otherwise there will be a serious doubt as to the legitimacy of his tenure. This doubt would also affect the respect people have for the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. I hope the issue can be quickly clarified so that the new president can take office under no shadow of doubt. This will be good for him and for the nation.” [Sacramento Union, 11/15/2008]'Pure Garbage' - An Obama spokesperson tells WorldNetDaily: “All I can tell you is that it [the petition] is just pure garbage. There have been several lawsuits, but they have been dismissed.” [WorldNetDaily, 11/13/2008]Affidavit from Phony 'Computer Graphics Expert' - Self-described “computer graphics expert” “Dr. Ron Polarik,” a conservative blogger, records a video (that blurs his face and disguises his voice) explaining how the actual Obama birth certificate was forged using Photoshop. Polarik submits an affidavit in support of the filing, but because he signs it “XXXXXXXXXXX,” the affidavit is inadmissible. Kreep later tells a reporter, “If it ever comes down to it, we’ll use his real name.” [Washington Independent, 7/24/2009] The Berg lawsuit also used material supplied by Polarik. Computer forensics expert Dr. Neal Krawetz later determines that Polarik’s analysis is a clumsy fraud perpetuated by an amateur with no real expertise. [Neal Krawetz, 11/25/2008; Washington Independent, 7/24/2009; Hacker Factor, 2011] Libertarian lawyer Loren Collins later traces a timeline of what he will call Polarik’s “ever-changing resume,” and questions Polarik’s claims to his several doctorates and areas of expertise. [Loren Collins, 7/7/2009] Collins later discovers that “Polarik” is actually a man named Ronald Jay Polland, who holds a doctorate in instructional systems, has experience conducting surveys and statistical reports, operates a one-man consulting firm in Florida, and describes himself on his MySpace page as an “[e]xpert advisor on relationships, romance, and… dating.” Polland’s resume, unlike “Polarik’s,” claims no expertise in document forensics, computing systems, or graphics. [Loren Collins, 7/29/2009] Krawetz will learn that Polland claimed to use a pseudonym on the Internet because “he fears threats from Obama supporters.” [Neal Krawetz, 11/25/2008]

A lawsuit filed by failed presidential candidate Alan Keyes and handled by lawyers Orly Taitz and Gary Kreep (see November 12, 2008 and After) is dismissed by the Superior Court of California. The lawsuit asked that since President Obama’s US citizenship is “unproven,” the court bar him from serving as president until the issue is “resolved.” [Superior Court of California, 3/13/2009] Appeals of the lawsuit, going all the way to the California Supreme Court, will be dismissed as well. [Disposition: Keyes v. Bowen, 2/2/2011]

The fraudulent birth certificate presented by California lawyer Orly Taitz ‘proving’ that Barack Obama was born in a Kenyan hospital. [Source: Snopes (.com)]California attorney Orly Taitz posts an image of what she says is President Obama’s “true” birth certificate, this one issued in Kenya (see June 13, 2008). Taitz then files a motion in federal court to prove its authenticity. The conservative news blog WorldNetDaily (WND) quickly publishes an article repeating Taitz’s claim. WND notes that the Kenyan document lists Obama’s parents as “Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Obama, formerly Stanley Ann Dunham.” The birth date is August 4, 1961, and the hospital of birth is Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya. The document lists no attending doctor. It does list the signature of the deputy registrar of Coast Province, Joshua Simon Oduya. According to the document, it was issued as a certified copy of the original in February 1964. WND claims that it has compared the Taitz document to other Kenyan birth certificates, and, it concludes, “the form of the documents appear to be identical.” WND admits that other fraudulent Kenyan birth certificates have recently been posted on the Internet, but, it says, “[t]he new document released by Taitz bears none of the obvious traits of a hoax.” Critics note that the Taitz document was certified as being issued by the Republic of Kenya on February 17, 1964, though the Republic of Kenya did not come into existence until December 1964. However, WND says, “Kenya’s official independence was in 1963, and any number of labels could have been applied to government documents during that time period.” According to WND, Taitz says she received the document “from an anonymous source who doesn’t want his name known because ‘he’s afraid for his life.’” Taitz’s court filing, in the US District Court for the Central District of California, requests the purported evidence of Obama’s birth—both the alleged birth certificate and foreign records not yet obtained—be preserved from destruction, asks for permission to legally request documents from Kenya, and seeks a subpoena for deposition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Taitz tells WND: “I filed the motion with the court asking for expedited discovery, which would allow me to start subpoenas and depositions even before Obama and the government responds. I am asking the judge to give me the power to subpoena the documents from the Kenyan embassy and to require a deposition from Hillary Clinton so they will be forced to authenticate [the birth certificate]. I’m forcing the issue, where Obama will have to respond.… Before, they said, ‘You don’t have anything backing your claims.’ Now I have something. In fact, I have posted on the Internet more than Obama has (see June 13, 2008). My birth certificate actually has signatures.” Taitz says she plans to file more documents with the court in the following days. [St. Petersburg Times, 8/2/2009; WorldNetDaily, 8/2/2009]Forgery - PolitiFact, the nonpartisan, political fact-checking organization sponsored by the St. Petersburg Times, asks for clarification from Salim Lone, the spokesman for Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Lone says via email: “It’s a forgery. Kenya only became a republic in December, 1964. Other arguments could also be marshaled, but they are not needed.” Blogger Steve Eddy then finds a nearly-identical document on the Internet using Google Search, posted on a genealogy Web site by an Australian, David Jeffrey Bomford. Eddy compares the two and, according to PolitiFact: “Same format. Same book and page number in the birth registry. Some of the officials’ last names were even the same.” Eddy tells PolitiFact, “At that point, it was pretty obvious the Kenyan one was a fake, that someone had used this real one from Australia to make their version.” An ABC affiliate in Australia asks Bomford, a public service clerk in Adelaide, about the controversy, and Bomford replies: “That is ridiculous. Little old person in Adelaide, the president of the United States. I don’t know whether to laugh about it or not, be worried about it.” Bomford says he had nothing to do with the hoax. “It’s little old me and my mum and everything else up there,” he says. The birth certificate he posted online is his own, he says. “Oh, I definitely confirm that the birth certificate was mine. That was quite easy to see—my address, even the style of the birth certificate was an old South Australian one. So it’s quite easy to identify that it’s mine.… It’s definitely a copy of my certificate. It’s so laughable it’s ridiculous.” [St. Petersburg Times, 8/2/2009] The Washington Independent’s David Weigel notes , “The image is part of the extremely ill-informed conspiracy theory that Obama was born in Mombasa—conveniently, one of the more Muslim parts of the country.” The Obama family lives in an entirely different part of Kenya, over a thousand miles from Mombasa. Moreover, at the time of Obama’s birth, Mombasa was not a part of Kenya, but part of Zanzibar. [Washington Independent, 8/3/2009]Rebuttal - Taitz posts on her Web site that Bomford’s certificate, not her own, is the fake, and says Bomford or someone else altered that certificate from the “original” Obama certificate to discredit her. Eddy says of Taitz’s claim, “There’s no reasoning with some of these people.” A blogger from “Obama Not Qualified” writes a long screed detailing his or her belief that the Taitz document is real, though noting his or her belief that the photo Taitz originally posted may not be real, and giving a step-by-step walkthrough of how to create a falsified document. PolitiFact receives a response from Val Edyvean, registrar of births, deaths and marriages for South Australia, saying: “It appears that a South Australian loaded an image of his own birth certificate onto a family history Web site and that the format was used by others to ‘create’ a document which purported to be a Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Obama. As the South Australian man has now removed this image, and the date of his birth is in the period of certificates which are restricted from public access, I do not intend to add to speculation by commenting on details of either that certificate or any aspects of it.” [Obama Not Qualified, 2008; St. Petersburg Times, 8/2/2009]Conclusion - WND publisher Joseph Farah publishes a column expressing his feeling that the Taitz certificate is “probably” a forgery, and claims that WND never made any assertion of its validity. (Farah also says that the State of Hawaii has “steadfastly refused” to state that the birth certificate posted by the Obama campaign in 2008 is valid, a false statement—see October 30, 2008 and July 28, 2009). “The Kenyan document could be real. I haven’t seen a single disqualifying error pointed out in the last 24 hours. But I still strongly suspect it is not,” he writes. Instead, he says, WND posted the certificate and the accompanying article so that it could be fact-checked. He then claims that Obama has “hidden” his real birth certificate and “virtually every other meaningful document in his life” from public scrutiny. [WorldNetDaily, 8/4/2009] PolitiFact concludes that the Taitz certificate “is a fake.” However, “we have no delusions this changes anyone’s mind in the birther movement.” [St. Petersburg Times, 8/2/2009]

Judge Clay Land. [Source: TruTV (.com)]US District Court Judge Clay Land throws out a complaint questioning President Obama’s birth, and seeking to halt the deployment of Army Captain Connie Rhodes to Iraq on the grounds that Obama is not the legitimate commander in chief. Rhodes is represented by “birther” lawyer Orly Taitz (see November 12, 2008 and After, March 13, 2009, and August 1-4, 2009). In the complaint, Taitz writes on behalf of Rhodes: “This plaintiff cannot in good conscience obey orders originating from a chain of command from this merely de facto president. This plaintiff cannot be lawfully compelled to obey this de facto president’s orders.” Land, clearly angered by the complaint, says Taitz will face sanctions if she ever files a similar “frivolous” complaint or lawsuit in his court again. Rhodes, Land rules, “has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as president of the United States. Instead, she uses her complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the president is ‘an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.’” The evidence presented by Taitz in the complaint is groundless, Land rules, noting allegations that Obama might have used 149 addresses and 39 Social Security numbers before becoming president and the existence of what Taitz claims is Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate. “Finally, in a remarkable shifting of the traditional legal burden of proof,” he writes, “plaintiff unashamedly alleges that defendant has the burden to prove his ‘natural born’ status. Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning fundamental principles upon which our country was founded in order to purportedly ‘protect and preserve’ those very principles. Unlike in ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ simply saying something is so does not make it so.” Land orders that Rhodes pay any costs incurred by the defendants, who include President Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Colonel Thomas Manning, a garrison commander at Fort Benning, Georgia. Taitz says she believes Land is guilty of treason by dismissing her complaint, saying, “Judge Land is a typical puppet of the regime—just like in the Soviet Union.” She adds that she intends to keep fighting for Rhodes if Rhodes desires her to, telling one reporter, “Listen, Nelson Mandela stayed in prison for years in order to get to the truth and justice.” Three days later, Rhodes renounces Taitz as her lawyer, and informs Land that she did not authorize the emergency request for stay of deployment that Taitz filed on her behalf. “I did not authorize it and do not wish to proceed,” Rhodes writes in a letter to Land. “Ms. Taitz never requested my permission nor did I give it.” She adds: “I do not wish for Ms. Taitz to file any future motions or represent me in any way in this court. It is my plan to file a complaint with the California State Bar due to her reprehensible and unprofessional actions.” Rhodes is deployed days later; an Ohio lawyer files a separate complaint with the California State Bar (see September 17, 2009). [Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 9/16/2009; Huffington Post, 9/16/2009; TPM Muckraker, 9/16/2009; Washington Independent, 9/19/2009] Taitz responds by telling a reporter she believes Rhodes’s letter is a forgery. “I don’t know if this letter came from her,” Taitz writes in an email, “since she is in Iraq now and the Office Max store from where it came, states that they don’t send faxes for customers. The signature on her notarized letter from Kansas and this letter looks different.” An Office Max clerk confirms that he faxed the letter on behalf of Rhodes, and the letter itself notes that she would fax it to Judge Land. Taitz goes on to claim that she believes Rhodes “was pressured by the military” to renounce her and consider filing a complaint with the California State Bar. “It appear to be a concerted effort to quash all free speech, particularly any legal challenges to Obama’s legitimacy.” [TPM Muckraker, 9/21/2009] In October, Land will sanction Taitz, fining her $20,000 for professional misconduct (see October 13-16, 2009). Land recently dismissed another, similar lawsuit filed by Taitz on behalf of Army Major Stefan Cook (see July 8-16, 2009).

Ohio lawyer Subodh Chandra, an inactive member of the California State Bar, files a formal complaint against California lawyer Orly Taitz for calling Georgia judge Clay Land “corrupt” and suggesting he is guilty of treason (see September 16-21, 2009). Chandra writes: “I respectfully request that you investigate Ms. Taitz’s conduct and impose an appropriate sanction. She is an embarrassment to the profession.” Chandra, who ran for attorney general of Ohio in 2006, writes that Taitz’s comments about Land violate section 6068(b) of the California Business & Professions Code. That section of the law requires attorneys to “maintain the respect due to the courts of justice and judicial officers.” Chandra’s complaint also alleges that Taitz is filing frivolous lawsuits and pursuing actions based on “corrupt motive of passion of interest, namely, discriminatory and political motives.” If a violation is assessed against Taitz, she could face actions ranging from private reproval to disbarment. [TPM Muckraker, 9/17/2009]

Judge David Carter. [Source: HubPages (.com)]US District Court Judge David Carter dismisses a lawsuit brought by a group claiming that President Obama was born in Kenya and, therefore, is not qualified to be president (see August 1-4, 2009). Carter lambasts lead lawyer Orly Taitz, ruling that he is “deeply concerned” that Taitz “may have suborned perjury through witnesses she intended to bring before this court.” Carter notes in his ruling that he has received “several sworn affidavits” showing that Taitz “asked potential witnesses” to lie under oath. Additionally, he rules, Taitz engaged in “improper and unethical” conduct by encouraging her supporters to phone and write him in an “attempt to influence this Court’s decision.” Carter rules that Taitz and her co-plaintiffs have not presented any usable evidence to bolster their claim of Obama’s supposed Kenyan citizenship. Instead, Taitz “favored rhetoric seeking to arouse the emotions and prejudices of her followers rather than the language of a lawyer seeking to present arguments through cogent legal reasoning.” Taitz’s inflammatory rhetoric, Carter finds, “often hampered the efforts of her co-counsel, Gary Kreep… to bring serious issues before the Court.” Carter rules that he exhibited “extreme patience” with Taitz and Kreep’s filings, noting that while Taitz and Kreep filed their lawsuit on January 20, 2009, they failed to serve the defendants in the case until August 25, 2009, and only then after repeated court orders to do so. “Taitz also continually refused to comply with court rules and procedures,” he notes, and even tried to get Magistrate Judge Arthur Nakasato removed from the original case because Nakasato required her to follow the court rules. And, he writes, Taitz attempted to dismiss two of her clients from the suit because she did not wish to work with their co-counsel. “Plaintiffs have encouraged the Court to ignore [the] Constitution; to disregard the limits on its power put in place by the Constitution; and to effectively overthrow a sitting president who was popularly elected by ‘We the People’—over sixty-nine million of the people,” Carter writes. “Plaintiffs have attacked the judiciary, including every prior court that has dismissed their claim, as unpatriotic and even treasonous for refusing to grant their requests and for adhering to the terms of the Constitution which set forth its jurisdiction. Respecting the constitutional role and jurisdiction of this Court is not unpatriotic. Quite the contrary, this Court considers commitment to that constitutional role to be the ultimate reflection of patriotism.” [The Smoking Gun, 10/29/2009; United States District Court for the Central District of California, 10/29/2009] Taitz and Kreep have filed a similar lawsuit with failed presidential candidate Alan Keyes, which has also been dismissed (see November 12, 2008 and After and March 13, 2009). Taitz was recently fined $20,000 for judicial misconduct (see October 13-16, 2009).

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals dismisses an appeal from ‘birther’ lawyer Orly Taitz of a $20,000 judgment levied against her by a Georgia judge (see October 13-16, 2009). The court finds that Taitz’s arguments are “unpersuasive and therefore affirm[s] the district court’s sanctions judgment.” Taitz says she has no intention of paying the fine and will appeal it to the US Supreme Court (see July 7 - August 16, 2010). [Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 3/15/2010] Taitz’s appeal contains the following: “[A]llowing sanctions by judge [sic] Land to stand, will signify beginning of tyranny in the United States of America and end to the Constitutional Republic which is the foundation of this nation. The question is as follows: ‘If the judiciary can sanction an attorney for bringing an action to uphold a Constitutional right, what is next? Will FEMA camps be turned intothe next GULAG? Will we see a wave of political assassinations of dissidents, as were seen in numerous totalitarian regimes around the World, such as regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or regime of Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Iran?’ This is the most dangerous road a judiciary can take. When judiciary is pandering to an illegitimate dictator, who sits in the White House, using a Social Security number of another individual and not having a valid long form birth certificate, the country descends into tyranny.” [Washington Examiner, 7/7/2010]

Lawyer and “birther” activist Orly Taitz (see November 12, 2008 and After, March 13, 2009, July 8-16, 2009, August 1-4, 2009, September 16-21, 2009, October 13-16, 2009, October 29, 2009, April 16, 2010, July 7 - August 16, 2010, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, and April 27, 2011) is “disinvited” to an upcoming Tax Day Tea Party rally in Pleasanton, California. Several Republican political candidates, including Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, are scheduled to speak at the rally, but after they complain about Taitz’s inclusion, she is removed from the slate of speakers. Bridget Melson, founder and president of the Pleasanton Tea Party, says the organization had been “getting calls from candidates like crazy.” She explains: “It’s not worth it. She’s too controversial. This is not what the tea party is about at this point.” Taitz herself is running for California secretary of state, a position that would presumably give her the power to block President Obama from being on the ballot in 2012 if she were to win the post. Fiorina, along with a representative of Senate candidate Chuck DeVore, and several congressional and state legislative candidates are scheduled to speak at the Pleasanton rally. Josh Trevino, a DeVore spokesperson, says, “I can say emphatically that the Chuck DeVore campaign and Chuck DeVore himself strongly disapproves of Orly Taitz and the crazy theories she continues to advance.” Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund says, “President Obama is absolutely eligible for the presidency and is a natural-born United States citizen.” She notes that Fiorina staunchly opposes most of Obama’s policies. At least one scheduled speaker, House candidate John Dennis, told organizers that if Taitz were retained on the slate, he would withdraw entirely. “The presence of a discredited publicity seeker on the same platform with patriotic Americans distorts the focus of our movement, distracts from our common message, and gives ammunition to those who continue to question our legitimacy,” Dennis told organizers. At least one rally attendee, Tom Del Beccaro of the California Republican Party, says Taitz’s questions about Obama’s citizenship may be valid: “I certainly don’t have enough information to decide that (see June 13, 2008). I’ve never seen yay or nay either way, so how could I know?” Taitz has caused controversy in her current race for secretary of state, questioning the legitimacy of her Republican primary opponent, real estate entrepreneur Damon Dunn, and accusing Republicans of supporting Dunn over her solely because he is African-American. [Los Angeles Times, 4/13/2010]

California “birther” lawyer Orly Taitz, mounting a longshot candidacy for California secretary of state, has another lawsuit, Taitz v. Obama, thrown out of court. The lawsuit is another in a series of legal attempts by Taitz to challenge President Obama’s citizenship and have a court remove him from the presidency (see March 13, 2009, August 1-4, 2009, September 16-21, 2009, October 29, 2009, and October 13-16, 2009). Judge Royce C. Lamberth, in his ruling, writes, “The Court is not willing to go tilting at windmills with her.” Lamberth refuses to allow Taitz to refile a lawsuit challenging Obama’s citizenship in a Washington, DC, federal court. Lawyers for Obama had asked that the case be dismissed because, among other things, Taitz does not have standing to bring it because she has not been harmed and the courts have no authority to remove a sitting president. [Orange County Register, 4/16/2010]

Orly Taitz. [Source: The Smoking Gun]California “birther” attorney Orly Taitz, attempting to avoid paying a $20,000 fine levied against her by a Georgia district court judge (see October 13-16, 2009), says after losing an appeal (see March 15, 2010) that she intends to appeal the fine to the Supreme Court. She files an application for stay of the fine to Justice Clarence Thomas, who denies it; she then refiles the application with Justice Samuel Alito, meanwhile demanding proof that Thomas actually denied the application [Washington Examiner, 7/7/2010; Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 8/4/2010] and asking Chief Justice John Roberts to verify Thomas’s dismissal. In her filing with Roberts, Taitz says she found the notice of dismissal on the Supreme Court’s Web site on a Saturday, just hours after “some Obama supporters” posted comments on her Web site “gloating about the fact that Justice Thomas dismissed her application.” She says that according to her examination, the Supreme Court docket has been altered and tampered with. She says that a previous appeal she had filed with the Court had also been deleted without explanation, and writes: “Currently, there is a clear pattern of entries being made on the docket of the Supreme Court, or entries or even cases deleted, when the court is closed and the justices and the clerks are not there.… Supreme Court is not a city bus, when one can go in and out any time he feels like.” Taitz demands to be allowed to visit the Supreme Court with a “forensic document expert” who can verify the validity of “the orders pertaining to her cases and verify and clarify, that there is a valid signature of Justice Thomas and his clerk on the denial of application 10A56, entered on the docket on Saturday 17, 2010” and of other cases she has filed, and demands that she and a “computer security expert” be allowed to examine the electronic docket of the cases pertaining to her and her clients to ascertain if they have been altered. [Orly Taitz, 7/20/2010; Orange County Register, 7/22/2010] Alito refers the application to the full Court, which dismisses the application without comment. [United Press International, 8/16/2010] It is unclear what, if any, response Roberts gives to Taitz. After the Court rejects her appeal, the government will place a lien on her property (see August 9, 2010 - January 11, 2011).

The federal government imposes a lien on the property of “birther” attorney Orly Taitz, in an attempt to collect the $20,000 she owes in fines imposed by District Court Judge Clay Land (see October 13-16, 2009). Taitz has appealed the fine to the Supreme Court and been denied (see July 7 - August 16, 2010). Columbus, Ohio, lawyer Frank Martin says: “This is a notice that the federal government has put a $20,000 lien plus interest on Orly Taitz. This lien trumps the Internal Revenue Code. This lien has priority over everything else.” If Taitz does not pay the fine, the government can seize her property, Martin says, though Taitz can oppose the collection in court. Taitz says she will pay the fine to avoid “giving the government the satisfaction” of seizing her property and/or her law license, though she intends to file appeals with the Supreme Court to avoid paying. “I will pay the money and I will continue fighting,” she says, and adds that her followers and supporters are donating money to pay the fine. “I’m confident that I will get $20,000 from the public, because people are angry and livid,” she says. “I don’t think anyone has ever seen anything like this in the world. I think the government should start worrying who’s in the White House. We have problems that are much bigger than $20,000 in sanctions.” [Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 8/9/2010; Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 8/10/2010] The Supreme Court rejects her appeal; Taitz says she intends to present her complaint to Congress, and even to international courts. Between August 9, 2010 and January 10, 2011, she has collected some $13,000 in donations, she says. [Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 1/10/2011]

Jonathan Martin and John F. Harris, writing for the online news outlet Politico, say that President Obama’s decision to present his “long form” birth certificate as proof of his US citizenship (see April 27, 2011) is a “decisive new turn in the centuries-long American history of political accusation and innuendo. By directly and coolly engaging a debate with his most fevered critics, Obama offered the most unmistakable validation ever to the idea that we are living in an era of public life with no referee—and no common understandings between fair and unfair, between relevant and trivial, or even between facts and fantasy.” The authors note that presidents have been pursued by “[l]urid conspiracy theories” for centuries. However, until now, those presidents have “benefited from a widespread consensus that some types of personal allegations had no place in public debate unless or until they received some imprimatur of legitimacy—from an official investigation, for instance, or from a detailed report by a major news organization.” That is no longer the case, they say (see April 27, 2011). Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says: “There are no more arbiters of truth. So whatever you can prove factually, somebody else can find something else and point to it with enough ferocity to get people to believe it. We’ve crossed some Rubicon into the unknown.” The writers note their difficulty in envisioning former President Clinton “coming out to the White House briefing room to present evidence showing why people who thought he helped plot the murder of aide Vincent Foster—never mind official rulings of suicide—were wrong” (see April 27, 2011), or former President George W. Bush giving a press conference denying allegations that “he knew about the Sept. 11 attacks ahead of time and chose to let them happen.” Obama’s choice to release the documentation and even to make a personal appearance to announce it are a powerful indication that the political dynamic has changed. Obama advisers explain that he made the decision to do so “because of the radical reordering of the political-media universe over the past 15 years, or so. The decline of traditional media and the rise of viral emails and partisan Web and cable TV platforms has meant the near-collapse of common facts, believed across the political spectrum.” Debunking the myth of Obama’s “foreign birth” means nothing to a large percentage of Americans who still remain unconvinced, or firmly believe the myth, the authors write. After trying to ignore it and mock it into irrelevance, they write, Obama “finally gave in and affirmed a new truth of politics in the Internet era: Nothing can be dismissed and anything that poses a political threat must be confronted directly.” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer says: “We’re dealing with a lot of the same things Clinton and frankly Bush dealt with, but we’re dealing with them at 1,000 times the speed and with fewer referees. That is the downside of the disaggregation of the media. If you don’t want to believe what someone is telling you, you can go somewhere else. If you believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that the president is not American, you can go somewhere to find somebody to validate that.” Another Obama adviser, who remains anonymous, adds: “Clinton never had to deal with a fully formed Internet. [Conservative Web gossip Matt] Drudge’s power was born out of the revelations of 1998. A fully automated cable TV universe with the Internet is something that [Clinton] never had to deal with.” Clinton’s press secretary Joe Lockhart says: “You’ve lost the ability to starve a story to death. So what you have to do is raise the price of those who are making the charges. If Donald Trump is out there saying this, you’ve got to make him pay a price for throwing a bomb before too much collateral damage is done.… You literally can’t laugh anything off. There’s nothing neutral in politics. It’s either helping you or hurting you. You’ve got to make sure it’s helping you or you’re going to lose.” The authors note that politicians are learning to use this phenomenon to their own advantage. While Washington Republicans often bemoan the ascendancy of “fringe” pundits like Fox News’s Glenn Beck, the authors write, “they relish the way Beck and ideological confederates excite the GOP base, a contributing factor in the party’s strong performance in 2010.” The authors also point to Democrats’ willingness to allow “liberal commentators” to push for the truth behind George W. Bush’s Vietnam-era service in the National Guard. The authors claim that the Obama team “enjoys giving the stage to the GOP’s most divisive voices,” noting that Gibbs and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel often called conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh “the de facto leader of the Republican Party.” Obama, and his successors, will have to do things previous presidents have never considered, from appearing on less “serious” talk shows such as those hosted by Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman, or making appearances on networks such as the sports broadcaster ESPN. “It’s hard to see a president doing those things 10 or 20 years ago, but it’s become almost a requirement now,” Gibbs says. It is hard to know where to draw the line, Gibbs continues. “Does it become incumbent to prove everything wrong? You have to be very careful to not fall into that trap because you’ll spend all of your time and energy chasing your own tail.” Pfeiffer says most open-minded Americans will take the “long form” certificate as the evidence required to settle the issue: “There will be some segment of the population who will believe what they’re going to believe, regardless of anything else. But for the majority of the country, we have the capacity to correct the record and convince people of the truth. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but it’s possible.” Pfeiffer notes the “huge amount of time and energy” spent on dealing with the “birther” issue, time better spent, he says, on issues confronting the country. Former Bush administration political adviser Karl Rove says the Obama administration has attempted to use the “birther” controversy against Republicans: “The president himself has hoped Republicans would continue to talk about it, thereby damaging their own credibility. It was a useful diversion (see April 27, 2011). But take a look at recent polls. The problem was the view was taking hold among independents. He got worried it was about to spin out of control” (see April 27, 2011). Rove says Obama was attempting to “play rope-a-dope with Republicans,” a charge Pfeiffer denies (see April 28, 2011). “Up until a month ago, nobody really asked for the long form. It was fringe. It was a settled issue for 99 percent of the country.” Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer says: “It’s a terrible problem for the body politic. People like me who have been or are in the arena have an obligation to speak out against people in both parties who push untruths” (see January 25, 2001, January 25-27, 2001, and April 18, 2001). “The political discourse is much worse now, but that’s not always to the detriment of the so-called victim. In this case, President Obama came out looking better.” Lockhart agrees, saying: “Look at the rogue’s gallery of Clinton accusers. Most of them blew themselves up.” Lockhart acknowledges that for some, the issue will never be settled (see April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 27, 2011, April 28, 2011, and April 29, 2011). “They’ll probably ask for the first diaper. They’ll want to see the DNA.” [Politico, 4/28/2011]

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